


This is the *heavy* heavy

by noxelementalist



Series: The Trouble with Rory Gilmore [1]
Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Cheerleaders, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 19:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18079688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxelementalist/pseuds/noxelementalist
Summary: First Rule of Cheerleading Club: never mention the cheerleaders





	This is the *heavy* heavy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sansets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansets/gifts).



> Set during the events of S2E11 “Secrets and Loans." 
> 
> Title from one of the episode's songs.

“It’s just me and the antiquers today Nico,” Lane huffed to herself as she shuffled through the door into her mom’s store, glancing at its giant sign on Elm Street just long enough to notice how really gray it seemed against the snow.

“Mom I’m home! Mom? Guess she must have decided to take the fight against our termite overlords to Rory’s,” she grumbled when she didn’t hear a response.

Walking through the store Lane dropped her bags and backpack and pompoms onto one of the chairs by the front. “Well, if you were _here_ , I’d tell you I’m just resting up for the pep rally tonight,” she said, her skirt swishing around the edges of oak tables and full-bodied mirrors as she moved through the store with a practiced ease. “You’d say ‘pep rally? What rally? Why are you going to a rally?’, and I’d say, ‘Mom, remember? I joined the cheerleading squad!’”

“Yeah, okay, that wouldn’t happen,” she muttered to herself as she reached the kitchen. “You’d probably say I’m being tempted by the devil to help him corrupt innocent young women into bed with the football team. As if anybody at Star Hollows High actually _needs_ my help to do that if they really wanted to.”

Lane sighed. Between her mom’s silence, and the whole… _thing_ with Rory, the day felt like it was just one never-ending critical review of her life choices. “Why is it that nobody wants me to be a cheerleader?” she asked the coffee mug she took out from the cabinet, an old white one that had the faded remnants of the words **Star Hollows Elementary** still embossed on it. “I mean, girls get asked to be cheerleaders all the time. And, okay, sure, living above an antique shop isn’t exactly all Leave it to Beaver, but I _am_ a girl. Just your normal, average, high school girl…who’s talking to a coffee mug.”

Absently Lane turned on the kitchen sink, carefully holding the mug underneath the water flowing out from the faucet. Cheerleading practice had actually been pretty _fun_ at first. The tryouts had been horrible— really, who wants to dance to _Mickey_ , and Lane was sure no teenager was meant to bounce that high off _anything_ , let alone the a beat up mat on the gym floor— but once she’d made the team the cheerleaders had been great. Chrissy had helped her get in her makeup kit in order while Cindy had drilled her through the moves. Even Janet had been surprisingly okay with Lane picking the song for the rally, though Jane was pretty sure that was because she’d actually been eyeing Jack McPhee, halfback of the Star Hollows Minutemen, as he bent over to snap the ball.

“All hail the temptation of menfolk,” she muttered, turning the sink off once the mug was full. Lane raised it, taking careful sips of the water, and for a brief moment she felt herself waiting for someone to say something back.

It was a response, she knew, Rory would’ve given to her.

 _She’d have to be here first, the way she used to be,_ Lane thought to herself as she finished, the last gulp of water tasting strangely bitter to her.   _And she’d have to not be weird about the cheerleading._ _Which_ , Lane reminded herself as she put the mug down in the sink to be cleaned, _she had been_.

Rory had been confused about why Lane would try cheerleading. Rory worried for her. Rory asked more questions than she had listened to Lane’s answers. Rory was weirdly defensive about Lane deciding to fill up her suddenly vast amounts of free no-friends, no-commitments time with a totally new activity like cheerleading when _Rory_ got to switch whole schools and get a boyfriend and a new frenemy—

“And my inner monologue sounds like that guy from Fight Club,” Lane grumbled as she began to leave the kitchen. “First Rule of Cheerleading Club: never mention the cheerleaders. Because, you know, you can’t just want to be one or try something out. To have a little adventure, be the main show instead of the warm up band. No, there’s gotta be a _reason_. Somebody has gotta _want_ you to be a cheerleader.”

“Well, surprise universe!” Lane yelled angrily into the empty store. “I am Lane Kim, and I wanna rock! Go Stars Hollows!”

Lane threw her first in the air, feeling triumphant, before her eyes caught sight of her reflection in a nearby mirror. There she stood, dressed in red and white, her short, candy-striped skirt matching her red cheerleading jacket and red socks, her fist less pumping the air than punctuating it with a pale hand and sleeve.

Her eyes, Lane noticed as she self-consciously lowered her hand, didn’t seem as confident.

 _So today I’m more Peppermint Patty than Patti Smith,_ she thought as she picked up her backpack and pompoms to head back to the high school, where Janet had said the team would be meeting up to go over the routine for the last time before the bonfire. _But it’ll have to do for now. Besides, it could be worse_. _I could’ve joined the German club._


End file.
